Student Dies In School Bus Crash

A high school student from Rocky Hill was killed and at least two other students were seriously injured Saturday when a school bus carrying 16 gifted math and science students to a robotics competition crashed though a highway guardrail and down an embankment in Hartford, police, educators and others said.

Authorities would not identify anyone involved in the accident, including the students, an adult adviser, the school bus driver and the driver of a station wagon that collided with the bus. But friends of the students and students' families identified the teenager who died as Vikas Parikh, a junior at the academy and a student at Rocky Hill High School.

"It's absolutely the worst thing that can happen," said Ashvin Pandit, a friend of Parikh's family who answered the telephone at the Parikh home in Rocky Hill Saturday afternoon.

The bus was carrying students from the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science, a regional magnet school in Hartford, to an event at Farmington High School. The bus plummeted down a 20-foot drop-off along the westbound side of I-84 near the Hartford-West Hartford line about 8 a.m. after colliding with the station wagon, which was occupied only by its driver, police said.

Lt. J. Paul Vance, spokesman for the state police, said accident victims were taken by ambulance to four regional hospitals with a variety of injuries. A parent of an academy student said the children reported feeling that the bus was airborne when it left the highway.

The parent, who asked not to be identified, said several students suffered broken bones and bruises and that they may have been injured as they bounced around inside the bus before it came to a crashing halt.

An academy student who didn't want to be identified said he was talking to Parikh near the rear of the bus when the vehicle left the highway. The student said he didn't see the car that hit the bus.

"All of a sudden, we were just airborne," the student said. "We were all airborne. The bus hit like three times, and we hit down finally to a stop and like half the kids, some of them were like wedged into the seats. ... One kid had a broken arm. He said he was in too much pain and not to move him, so we didn't.

"I wasn't hurt at all; my back now is sore. I wasn't bleeding or hurt. I got up immediately and started helping people."

The student said he and some other students bandaged those who were more seriously hurt and waited for ambulances to arrive.

The student described his friend Vikas as "a very intelligent kid."

Ralph Jefferson of Avon, another parent, said his daughter, Lauren, the co-founder of the robotics team, was on the bus and called him from the accident scene. Jefferson said his daughter, who was not hurt, told him, " 'Our bus was just run off the road.' She was very upset."

Lauren had seen an apparently out-of-control car hit the bus on the side, and it appeared the car was going to hit the bus again, Ralph Jefferson said.

"She grabbed the seat in front of her and braced herself," he said.

"One of her friends flew over two seats and got a gash from that," Jefferson said. "She said there were a number of people with broken ankles and broken wrists, and an adult with broken ribs and maybe a broken wrist."

One student was unconscious and bleeding heavily, he said.

"It was a mess," Jefferson said.

Students were fearful that the bus would roll over, but it didn't, he said. After getting out, some students called for emergency help while others got the bus's first-aid kit and started treating the injured, he said.

The robotics team, the Pirates of the Pythagorean, was created during the current school year, Ralph Jefferson said.

Five students on the bus were from Rocky Hill, according to that town's superintendent of schools, Jeffrey Villar, who said grief counselors will be available to students Monday morning.

"Obviously, an awful lot of people are just devastated by what happened this morning," he said.

David Medina, a spokesman for the Hartford public school system, said two students on the bus were seriously injured. The bus driver was reported in stable condition at Hartford Hospital, Medina said.

State police did not release information about injuries other than to say that victims were taken by ambulances to the University of Connecticut Health Center, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, the Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Hartford Hospital.

Vance said witnesses told police the bus was westbound on an apparently dry highway when the accident occurred, between exits 45 and 46.

The highway was closed for hours while state police experts tried to reconstruct the accident. Vance said additional information could become public today.

"We are saddened to confirm that a student from the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science was fatally injured this morning during a very serious accident on I-84 west," said Bruce E. Douglas, executive director of the Capitol Region Education Council, which operates the academy. "A bus driver, a teacher and 15 students from [the academy] were also injured.

"Our hearts and the hearts of every educator and parent go out to his parents, his family, his community in Rocky Hill, students and faculty of the Greater Hartford Academy of Math and Science, and the entire [academy] community," Douglas said. "They will all be in our prayers. This kind of incomprehensible tragedy is always on our minds. It is something we work tirelessly to prevent."

Douglas said counselors were being made available immediately at the Learning Corridor for students and faculty.

The Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science draws students from several Greater Hartford towns, which pay the students' tuitions, Medina said. The school is among a cluster of education-related buildings in Hartford known as the Learning Corridor. Medina said two students on the bus were from Hartford.

By Saturday afternoon, students were posting comments about the accident and its aftermath on a Facebook event page called "In Memoriam: 01.09.2010."

The page advertised "a come-together for all the members of GHAMAS who are safe, offering our prayers/condolences/help to those hurt" that was scheduled to take place at the Hartford school today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

One poster, who identified himself as Kevin Curtin, a former student at the math and sciences academy, wrote of Parikh: "I hope your memories of Vikas are as vivid and wonderful as mine. Though we've only had one class together, his honesty and intelligence came across within the first five minutes of knowing him. He was a witty, funny, honest and great little lanky kid and one of my few friends in the class."

Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, who was at the academy Saturday morning, said he had visited the families of the two Hartford students. He said that he could offer no additional information and that school and law enforcement authorities were processing information.

"We're dealing with a tragedy," Perez said. "My heart goes out to each of the families."

A parent of an academy student said individuals who attend the school are honors students who study an honors curriculum. Academy students study core academic subjects such as English, social studies and foreign languages for half a day at their hometown high schools before taking a bus to the academy for intensive math and science instruction.

Vance asked witnesses of the accident to call the state police in Hartford . The number is 860-534-1000.